Pages

Friday, February 20, 2015

The kids around here are all on Winter Break this week so we have been hosting various activities to keep them busy. Today's Candy Science program worked well with my budget as most of the candy was on clearance from Valentine's Day (Pop Rocks and Sprite were the only nondiscounted items). All of the experiments except 1 were from the books Candy Experiments and Candy Experiments 2 by Loralee Leavitt.

We registered 20 kids, ages 7-12, for this program as this is what our Activity Room will hold. There was a lot of interest and if we had extra staff to cover the reference desk, we could have easily run 3 sessions of this program. It would help if you had a volunteer to help with getting extra cups out on the tables and used cups emptied out. I just tagged some of our regular parents to help out (and really, they loved being a part of the program!).

Since I was the only staff member in the room, my goal was to have as much of the supplies out on the table at the beginning as possible. Our tables seat four so I set the experiments up so kids would work as either a pair (on one side of the table) or as a group of 4. This is what our tables looked like:

Experiment 1-Floating LettersI started with this experiment as you want to let it sit for a couple of minutes. The kids added their M&Ms to their cup of warm water. We put it aside and went onto experiment 2, then came back to check our results. We had quite a few floating M's on the surface of the water.

Experiment 2-Bobbing HeartsThe kids added their Conversation Hearts to their cup of Sprite. The hearts started bobbing up and down right away. We talked about how Sprite is carbonated and uses carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide lifts the candy hearts and as the bubbles pop, the hearts drop to the bottom of the glass.

Experiment 3-Floating/Sinking Candy BarsWe started off by talking about what a hypothesis is and made guesses as to whether each mini candy bar would float or sink. Each kid would raise their hand as we guessed so I could count them and we displayed our guesses at the front of the room.

The kids then tested their guesses as they floated the mini candy bars (Twix, Snickers, Milky Way, Milky Way, and 3 Musketeers) in glasses of water. Note-we have a lot of peanut allergies in our area so 2 tables did not use Snickers. They got to try the special Milky Way Dark bars.

If you haven't tried this experiment before, all of our candy bars sank except the 3 Musketeers. We talked about the ingredients and how the Twix, Milky Way, and Snickers all had ingredients that were heavier than water (nuts, caramel, etc.). The middle of the 3 Musketeers has a lot of air, which makes it lighter than water and will float. We then talked about other food items, such as marshmallows, that would float as they are made up mostly of air.

Experiment 4-Disappearing TwizzlersI filled disposable plastic cups with vegetable oil and passed out whole red Twizzlers. I originally tried to break the Twizzlers in half due to the cup size, but that makes it hard for the experiment to work. We talked about reflections in water and how images are distorted. Then we added our Twizzlers to the glass and they could watch the Twizzlers bend in the oil. Finally, I had them try to make the licorice disappear. While they did this, I was able to get water out for the next experiment. Most everybody had figured out the trick of turning the glass while the licorice is at the side by the time I had finished passing out new water.

Experiment 5-Sour Candy Bubble TestWe started by talking about acids and bases. If you combine the two, you will get a chemical reaction. We guessed that our Sour Patch Kids would have acid in them because they are sour so we put some in our new glass of water. I walked around and added a spoonful of baking soda (base) to every cup and we watched the bubbles appear. This proved that our candy was an acid.

Experiment 6-Pop Rocks ExpanderFor this experiment, you need Pop Rocks, Sprite, and a balloon. Since I talked fast through the previous experiments, I had the kids add the Pop Rocks to the balloon without funnels to take up a little bit of time. This way, they all got a turn to try and pour.We added our balloons to the tops of our Sprite (20 oz. bottles) and tipped the Pop Rocks into the Sprite. As the balloons expanded, we talked about how both Pop Rocks and Sprite have carbon dioxide in them. In fact, Pop Rocks even list carbon dioxide as an ingredient. The carbon dioxide from both ingredients makes the balloon inflate.

The overall program took about 40 minutes, but I also talk fast. Since I had leftover candy, each kid who wanted (and whose parents would let them) could come up and get some of the leftover candy. The kids all left happy and cleared out all of our food and candy experiment books from my display.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

I have been working on another round of early literacy kits and one of them will deal with days of the week. Cookie's Week by Cindy Ward is an excellent addition to this kit. I used the pattern from Making Learning Fun for most of the pieces and used puffy paint to add the details. For a few of the pieces (kitten, flowers, and leaves), I used die cuts.

The finished kit should be appearing here in the next couple of weeks. This week's Flannel Friday round-up is hosted by Katie at Story Time Secrets.

If you want to know more
about Flannel Friday:

Check out the
official Flannel Friday blog that includes schedules
and other important information.

Friday, February 6, 2015

The neat thing about working with toddlers is that you can reuse awesome crafts and programs every 2-3 years for a whole new crowd. 2 of the crafts from this program have been posted here before and 1 is new. My toddler craft programs are limited to 20 2 and 3 year olds. I run it as a station program where there is a different craft at each station. Almost everything is precut and I try to focus on only one skill per station (ex. gluing).

Craft #1-Envelope totesThis craft appeared in my first post ever. To make your own, seal an envelope. One of the corners will form your bottom point. I cut the rounded heart bumps (the top) above it. We decorated our hearts with stickers and attached a pipe cleaner through two prepunched holes to make a handle.

Craft #2-CliffordThis craft appeared here when we celebrated Clifford's 50th birthday in 2013. From the pattern, I precut all of the shapes so the kiddos just had to assemble their Cliffords. Some kids made their Cliffords upside down from my example, but that is okay. Then Clifford just had a different look.

Craft #3-Heart collageTo make our third craft, I drew a heart shape in Microsoft Publisher and printed it on white cardstock. I pretore red, pink, and purple construction paper and the kids added these pieces onto their heart.

Flannel Friday

Storytime Underground

ALSC

About Me

I have been a youth services librarian for 10+ years in the Metro Detroit area. While I work with ages 0-12, my specialty is working with 2-3 year olds. For more info about me, check out the "About Me" tab across the top of the page. Ideas and opinions represented on this blog do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.